


Daiguren

by Miashin



Category: Bleach
Genre: LiveJournal, M/M, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miashin/pseuds/Miashin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hitsugaya and Hyorinmaru had a contract, and Hyorinmaru is out to collect. Ichigo won't stand for this and accepts a new deal to save Hitsugaya. There are many kinds of hell, and not all of them burn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daiguren

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for a secret santa gift exchange on Livejournal many years ago. My memory isn't the greatest for back then. Regardless, I've update and edited it a bit and am now posting it up here.
> 
> Please note that this was written before the end of the Fake Karakura Arc and only a short while after Diamond Dust Rebellion came out. Any canon that was revealed after those points didn't exist back than so please forgive any consistencies between them and this fic.

_Kuchiki had wanted to try them cause she'd been told it was flavored ice and because it was another 'exciting living world' confection. That was a common enough event, to be fair, but today she had managed to talk Matsumoto into joining her in the exploration. This inevitably meant Hitsugaya got dragged along, mostly because the keys to Inoue's apartment were sequestered in a part of Matsumoto's anatomy where he could NOT put his hands without looking like a pervert._

_Obviously this had been an extensively planned and well executed trap._

_Such was the prologue to him wasting time in a living world food and beverage shop while Kuchiki and Matsumoto pondered over their orders._

_“Ne, Taicho, what flavor do you want?” Matsumoto questioned with a finger to her lips, not even turning around to address him._

_“I rather not have any.” He muttered, which did get her to turn to him, though the proper respect she should have been showing was still missing._

_“But Taicho, you have to. Everybody's getting some.” She whined._

_“Just because everybody's getting some doesn't mean I need to.” He gruffed leaning back slightly as she leaned over him pitching her voice to that perfect frequency that could shatter glass, and his skull._

_“But Taichoooo.”_

_“Alright fine, whatever flavor.” He turned away, resisting the urge to either cover his ears or rub at his temple...or do both._

_“Vanilla then. Ichigo says just about everybody likes Vanilla.” Kuchiki piped into the conversation, saving him from further immediate fukutaicho troubles._

_“Oy, Renji, Ichigo, what do you want!” She then proceeded to shout across nearly half the shop to where Kurosaki was attempting to drag Abarai away from some machine. Hitsugaya flinched as the eyes of all the other customers turned to them making him hunch his shoulders and wish to just walk out right then. The urge only grew stronger as Kurosaki managed to drag the still struggling Abarai to the counter._

_“I got that guy right in the head, stupid thing's a cheat.” Abarai would have kept on complaining if Kuchiki hadn't grabbed him by the vest and pulled him right into, not up but into, the counter._

_“Which flavor do you want?” She questioned, perfectly innocent as Abarai rubbed at his side which had hit the thick wood none too gently._

_“I don't care, whatever you're having.”_

_“Pickles it is then!” Kuchiki cheered, completely overriding Abarai's shocked “What!?” It was Kurosaki's turn to be 'accosted' next. “And what are you getting, Ichigo?”_

_“Blood Orange.” The answer was enough to cause even Matsumoto to stop her relaying their order to the very perturbed cashier as all eyes fell on Kurosaki. A short moment of silence passed as several stares were directed at him before he finally gritted out, “Not a word.”_

_“Right, and one bloody orange!” Matsumoto cheerfully ordered, waving Kurosaki forward to stand by her. “And the orange top is paying.” She announced, also successfully managing to drown out the next “What!?” that followed, this time from Kurosaki._

_A few minutes later found them all exiting the store, Abarai stomaching his drink with a distinctly green expression while Matsumoto and Kuchiki took the lead chattering away happily._

_“If I wanted I could have just made it myself.” Hitsugaya though while swirling his own drink, trailing at the back of the group. He wasn't at all interested in consuming it but he was too frugal to just throw it away and waste that money._

_Thinking of which._

_“Oi, Kurosaki.” He picked his pace up to catch up to the teen, putting a hand in his pocket to pull out his wallet along the way. “Here.” He held out three 10,000 yen notes the site of which caused Kurosaki to suck in a breath and almost choke on his straw in the process._

_“I can't take that!” Kurosaki tried to refuse but Hitsugaya simply frowned and then stuffed them into the teens pocket. “Then think of the extra as payment for troubles.” He didn't bother to listen to Kurosaki's further protests, especially since it seemed some store display had caught Matsumoto's interest and she was apparently talking Kuchiki into the approaching chaos._

* * *

  


Voices drew him from his dreams and into the familiar cold setting of his inner world. He rose slowly to his hands and knees, trying to recall recent events as he became immediately aware of the lack of Hyornimaru's weight on his back. His last memories were of the battle against the arrancar, a natural one as almost all that were left from Aizen had been exterminated during that war or the battle for Hell's Gate. It had been a sand controlling scorpion, and he very distinctly recalled coming out victorious though not before being struck by the unfriendly end of its tail.

The hard packed snow underneath him was almost blindingly white from reflecting the light of a clear blue sky, an unusual sight in his inner world as was the lack of wind. Looking in the direction of the voices, he saw Hyorinmaru, upper body held above the ground and speaking to someone, or something, that was hidden from his sight by the dragons coils. Both were too far away for him to make out the conversation, but he could tell even from here that Hyorinmaru was being unusually… respectful instead of overbearingly dominant and malicious as was normal for him.

Trying to stand Hitsugaya found his knees weak and shaky and breathing surprisingly difficult, as if only recently a great weight had been sitting on his chest. He took a second to recover and catch his strength before approaching Hyorinmaru. As he walked he moved at an angle, coming around to the dragon's front so that he could see who Hyorinmaru was showing such deference too.

To his surprise he saw only an older man standing before the dragon, one he'd never before met or even seen in passing. His hair was long and unkempt, hanging down limply around an unshaven face. His clothing was equally ragged, a black cloak that ended in torn edges. As he got closer the dragon and man cut off their conversation and the dark man turned to face him; a glint of sunlight revealed him to be wearing glasses.

Hitsugaya was about to demand who this person was that had invaded his inner world, and what was going on of course, but Hyorinmaru moved as fast as his serpentine form suggested he could. The great dragon slammed his tail down right in front of Hitsugaya, kicking snow up high into the air and burying the captain in a slough of it, as well as separating him from the stranger.

As he dug his way out of the snowdrift, sputtering and coughing, Hitsugaya caught the tail end of the conversation.

“Anything...” A voice like the low rumble of distant thunder identified Hyorinmaru easily, and the chuckle that followed the word held a distinct tone of cruelty. “I approve of that. Very well, I accept his offer.”

Hitsugaya had just made it out of the drift and started shaking the snow out of his shihakusho as the man bowed shallowly to Hyorinmaru. “Then I shall return and inform them of your agreement.” And just like that he vanished, dispersing like black fog on the windless air.

“Hyorinmaru! What is going on here?!” Toshiro yelled angrily at the dragon. Hyorinmaru turned his head to him lazily, as if only just noticing that he had almost crushed his wielder. Blood red eyes looked coldly upon the shinigami as the dragon raised himself a little higher and puffed up a little larger, wings partially opening on either side. As a whole, Hyorinmaru moved to tower imposingly over Hitsugaya.

“Going on? Little master, you broke our contract.” The way the dragon emphasized on the word 'master' made the term more a mockery than a show of submission.

“What do you mean.” Hitsugaya growled, glaring up at the dragon and not at all budging to his intimidating posturing. Of course, his stubbornness only seemed to amuse Hyorinmaru.

“You used my wings long after the last petal had faded.” The tail that had been lying still beside Hitsugaya lashed and curled around him, leaving the shinigami with only a few feet of free space as the rest of the dragon's body moved to cut off any escapes from above.

Hitsugaya was stunned by the thought. He knew he'd been poisoned mid-battle, but he'd thought himself to still have had wits enough to dispel his bankai before the time limit was up. He held tightly to his self control and resisted the first instinct to bolt from the entrapping form of Hyorinmaru. “I didn-”

“YOU DID!” The dragon roared, the low rumble of his voice suddenly becoming an explosion of sound above his head. “We made a deal. My wings, to do with as you please within a span of time.”  Hyorinmaru quieted and brought his head down, the tip of his nose only a few feet above Hitsugaya as he rumbled quietly. “You broke it.” The tail curled tighter about shinigami, now starting to squeeze his body. “And you will pay for being false to me.”

Hitsugaya shivered at the feel of Hyorinmaru's frozen body constricting around him. His mouth was clenched tight while he kept a glare steady and fixed with the dragon's gaze. Thoughts were running a thousand miles an hour in his head, rushing back to the battle and the sudden cold weakness that had grasped him at the end of it. A weakness that he had blamed on the same poison that had distorted his senses. There had to be a way out of this, if there wasn't, and if Hyorinmaru was dead set on crushing him, then the dragon would have done so already instead of prolonging things in this manner.

The thought of a possible and imminent end to his life derailed his mind for a second to those that concerned him the most. Those that would be most impacted by this sudden turn of events. Matsumoto and Kurosaki standing out most prominently among them.

“You're fortunate, though, master.” Hitsugaya refused to so much as blink at the statement, knowing full well that Hyorinmaru was looking for any bit of weakness.

“How so?” He questioned wearily, his voice steady even though he was still desperately trying to think of any method, technique, or new deal that could get him out of the current situation.

“Because someone else has already offered a new… contract.” The dragon chuckled, the comment dripping with maliciousness. The tone, and the mention of somebody else were enough to startle Hitsugaya. His mind immediately jumped to the strange man as he blinked, for a second showing his confusion.

The small lapse in composure was more than enough. In the next instant the dragon reared back, opening his mouth and letting out a mighty roar. White wind exhaling from the jaws freezing his tail and the shinigami it held imprisoned.

* * *

  


_Ichigo let out a heavy sigh as he settled back into the bed after fetching new blankets to replace the dirtied ones. Satisfied contentment weighed him down as he pulled Toshiro into his arms, letting out another sigh as he adjusted the captain's head to rest against the base of his neck. For a while quiet and peace settled in his room, both alien but welcome things in the setting._

_Then a small fist jabbed him sharply in the chest and completely ruined the moment. Ichigo grunted and tried to tighten his hold around Toshiro, but this only earned him another, slightly more painful, jab._

_“You're too close.” He heard Toshiro mutter, causing his frown, which had for just a brief moment absented itself, to return full force. “And you stink.” was the next comment as he was jabbed again and Toshiro began to truly try to move out of his grasp._

_With a grumble, Ichigo adjusted his hold and moved lower in the bed so that he was face to face with Toshiro. For a moment there was quiet and he dared to hope that the captain had nothing to complain about now, but then he felt the efforts to escape resume. “You're breathing into my face.” was the next complaint and finally Ichigo relented, letting Toshiro turn around and face away from him._

_A third sigh, this one of defeat. At least now Toshiro would allow himself to be pulled close even if Ichigo would be greeted by nothing more than his lovers cold back in the morning, if that much._

* * *

  


When the odd sensation of being sucked through a wind-tunnel dissipated Ichigo opened his eyes on a world of cold. In the distance glacier topped mountains rose like talons to claw at a clear blue sky. More glaciers, some almost half the hight of the mountains themselves, creeped out of the valleys between the peaks. The bright unfiltered sunlight reflected off the unstained ground blindingly for the while it took for his eyes to adjust to the shine, forcing him to raise a hand to shade them.

For a moment he was disoriented by the simple fact that this inner world was right side up, instead of skewed, as his was.

Strangely he was not at all surprised by the barren and icy plain that stretched before him and to the feet of the distant mountains. The monotony of the straight was only broken by the frequent giant pillars and shards of ice that stood up all across expanse. It fit Toshiro, or some parts of him anyway.

A deep rumble behind Ichigo had him turning about sharply, the hand which had been shading his eyes reaching up and behind for Zangetsu only to find the blade absent. The lack of a weapon was especially dismaying when he saw Hyorinmaru, rising high above him with wings almost fully spread open and spines bristling. He'd been hoping against all prior knowledge that Toshiro's spirit would be something closer to what Zangetsu was like, except perhaps with more white and younger as well.

The giant dragon obviously wasn't. Ichigo could see its long body coil across the ice, the tail curled about a small dome of ice, and shifting in undulating waves as if to show of its form now that he had noticed it.

“Welcome to my realm...Vaizard.” Hyorinmaru growled, causing Ichigo to glower at the beast.

“How-” The dragon opened its mouth wide letting out a bellowing laugh and cutting his question off.

“I'm a Zanpakuto, I know.” The dragon explained, continuing to chuckle as Ichigo glanced about the immediate area.

“Where's Toshiro?” He demanded to know and, as if a switch had been flipped, the dragon's good humor vanished. Hyorinmaru spread its wings wide and gave one great beat, kicking up a strong enough wind to knock Ichigo of his feet and send him rolling along the ground.

“That is no concern of yours. You are in no position to either ask or demand things of me!” Hyorinmaru roared, a large wave moving along its body culminating in his tail lashing out and slamming into the ground a short distance away, leaving a crater in the hard packed snow and ice.

Ichigo regained his footing, standing strong now against the wind the dragon continued beating up. “Damn it, he's been out for three days. I just-”

“SILENCE!” The roar was loud enough to shake the very ice they stood on. It did silence Ichigo, if for no other reason than the ringing in his ears. Slowly the dragon stilled his wings.

“Your Zanpakuto informed me you would do anything to bring him back..” Hyorinmaru growled and a blue tongue came out to lick at its icy chops. “Anything...” it repeated with a hiss.

Ichigo stood up straight, glaring at the beast, and nodded. “Yes anything.”

“Then I propose this.” Now the dragon wash chuckling, a low growl that undulated in waves that matched those traveling down its serpentine lengths. “Take the same test that the little master took to earn my bankai. Pass and all will go back to the way it was before, fail and I will abandon Hitsugaya Toshiro and take all of his shinigami powers with me.”

“But-” Ichigo tried to interject but Hyorinmaru beat its wings again. This time, though, he was prepared and managed to keep his footing.

“Yes or no!” The dragon roared, stopping its wings with an audible and vicious snap that emphasized its temper. For a while silence settled on the frozen world.

Ichigo frowned at the dragon, feeling as much as seeing the tension coil in its form. The wrong word now would have him immediately evicted from this world and that would be the end of everything. On the one hand he felt a desperate sense of relief. For the last three days Toshiro had been losing his reiatsu, which had drawn many people, including him, to believe that the captain was dyeing despite the fact that his physical injuries had been healed and the poison removed.

He didn't know why the dragon was taking Toshiro's shinigami powers nor did he really care as long as he knew the young captain would live. But that also meant there was no need to have come this far, no need to take the dragon up on its offer. He'd come here prepared to face Toshiro's Zanpakuto the moment Unohana had stormed out of the intensive care room, grabbed the blade and shattered it. Ichigo had been ready for a battle as vicious as the one he'd had to face against his own inner hollow to save Toshiro's life when she had diagnosed that it was the blade itself which was stealing the reiatsu from his lover.

But Toshiro was safe and there was no need to go that far. Ichigo squared his shoulders determinedly and replied to Hyorinmaru.

“Yes.”

* * *

  


_For very obvious reasons Ichigo had always imagined Toshiro's private quarters to be as spotless, ninety-degree rigid, as his office._

_He did not in a thousand years expect to walk into the large building that seemed to be the source of every dustbunny this side of Sereitei._

_Piles of books of all kinds (thick leather-bound volumes, notebooks, manuscripts, magazines) covered just about every available corner. Blank papers and a miscellaneous collection of junk had invaded the spaces the books didn't occupy. Out of all the rooms in the just-small-enough-to-not-be-a-mansion quarters only the entry, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom seemed to see regular use (and cleaning)._

_For a moment he was dumbfounded after peeking through one ajar doorway to what might have been a guest room if it wasn't inhabited by a collection of rocks and crystals in one half, books almost large enough to sleep on in the other, and the world’s biggest insect farm aquarium sitting empty on a window shelf at its back._

_No wonder Toshiro had threatened him with much pain and suffering if he ever spoke a word of the interior of the tenth division captain's quarters. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust, attesting to the fact that Toshiro did spend more time in the office than in his own 'home.' Considering all the possible health ramifications of living in a place like this that might not have been a bad thing though._

_The sight of the mess that must have taken several of his own life times to amass made Ichigo's hands twitch. He wasn't a clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but he did keep his own spaces orderly. Yuzu had pretty much trained it into him. Not on purpose, of course, but as he'd gotten older her intrusions into his room to clean it became less and less welcome._

_With Toshiro at the office and only having given him the most threatening and grudging of permissions to see the space he had nothing better to do than explore the collections. Beside the aquarium room another held huge rolls of paper and a calligraphy brush twice Ichigo's size. Imagining Toshiro using the thing was almost too much for his mind. One room, which had obviously been built as a place for meditation, now ironically housed a collection of assorted weapons. In one corner of the same room were plant pots, some still with dried and dusty dirt in them. Ichigo guessed them to be the remains of a failed attempt at botany._

_The bedroom was by far the cleanest. The obligatory books and manuscripts filled only a single corner of the room, and it was used enough for the dust invasion to not have overtaken it beyond 'normal' levels. A window that seemed to be semi-permanently open probably aided towards this. Said window and a sliding door opened onto the rear of the building and a garden there._

_The garden also showed a lack of anything but the most basic tending. There was no plan for it, no pretty pond in one corner with aesthetic arrangements to bushes and flowers around it, and no signs of attracting wildlife like bird feeders. Not even a wind chime by the door. Instead whatever plantlife wished to grow there was allowed to do so, unhindered everywhere except at the garden's edges where it was pruned and cut to remain at least within the confines of the compound's walls._

_That said, the garden area was a good deal larger than the living quarters, and Ichigo could see signs that parts of the building had actually been removed to add more garden space. The back was large enough, in fact, to be called a very small wood, with thick trunked trees and well trodden paths between them. Ichigo wasn't too into the 'nature beauty' thing though, so soon enough he was back within the building._

_It was strange. He had cajoled, annoyed, and forced his permission to enter the place, though now that he was here, and the initial shock had worn off, it all seemed rather… underwhelming. It would have been more interesting if Toshiro hoarded precious jewels like the dragons in movies did._

_He'd yet to find THAT back room. Though, when he did, Hitsugaya giving away 30,000 yen like so much dust maid a whole lot more sense._

* * *

  


Silence followed his statement, making his 'yes' echo strangely in the emptiness. Hyorinmaru gazed at him with blood red eyes. At first he felt a rumble at the barest edge of his range of hearing, a rumble that progressively grew and turned into a thundering laugh, different and much colder than the first one he'd heard, as the dragon threw its head back with its jaws wide opened to let out the near roars. The wings moved forward, the tips closing in front of Ichigo and momentarily hiding the beast from his sight.

What other answer could he have given? Despite all the complaints about paperwork and Matsumoto, being a captain was Toshiro's life. Ichigo could only too well empathize what it would be like to lose all shingami powers, to lose any ability to protect and fight. He couldn't just turn his back and leave Toshiro to such a fate.

The laughter faded as the wings opened again, revealing Hyorinmaru to have lowered its head to the ground its nose now just a few inches over a barrel that had materialized there, about three and a half feet high and filled to the brim with sesame seeds. There was still a dry growl coming from Hyorinmaru, a chuckle as the red eyes narrowed at him.

“Then let it be so.” the dragon spoke as Ichigo cautiously stepped forward and wearily gazed at the barrel. Zangetsu's test had been blatantly combat oriented, and he had been worried that the dragon would follow the same path. Fighting the beast without a weapon would have been a dreadful experience.

“What do I do?” He asked, as he watched the dragon settle down, letting it's long body lay across the ground while it continued to chuckle in its growling voice and watch him like a hawk.

“Take the seeds from that barrel and drop them in the pit.” Its tail flicked sharply to indicate the crater it had created earlier.

“That's it?” Ichigo asked, amazed at the simplicity of it.

Hyorinmaru snorted, a plume of snowflakes flying from its nose while the gleam in its eyes seemed to grow brighter. “One at a time, of course.” The dragon replied, causing Ichigo to frown disbelievingly at the quantity of seeds before him. Then, with a snort of his own, he pulled the sleeves on his shihakusho up and got to it. It'd take forever, it felt like, but if he could get through Zangetsu's test he could make it through this easy. He raised his hand to toss the seed but almost dropped it as Hyorinmaru roared behind him.

“No throwing. If you let go of a seed after picking it up anywhere other than above the assigned place you fail the task.” The dragon informed tauntingly, earning itself a glare from Ichigo, as it happily snorted another puff of snow at him.

The shadows of clouds scuttled along the ground as Ichigo made the first of what would be many many trips between the barrel and crater. It was a mindrottingly dull task from the very beginning, back and forth, and what had looked like it would take forever quickly turned into an eternity after the first few trips.

Toshiro was going to owe him a lot after this. At least it wasn't too hard, even if Hyorinmaru's red eyes kept a constant watch on him. “Voyeur.” Ichigo called it after a while, as the silence began to weigh on him. The dragon's eyes simply gleamed all the more as it purred.

“Why, thank you.”

“Wasn't a compliment.” He growled and let the quiet settle back in.

* * *

  


_“I said you could look, not snoop about.” Toshiro complained as he found Ichigo turning the large and heavy pages of one of the giant books, this one apparently about the structures of hell._

_“I wasn't snooping, and that took a whole lot longer than half an hour.” Ichigo replied lazily, pulling and shoving heavily on the cover to lift it off the ground and close the book which had proven to be almost entirely illegible. The many disturbing illustrations that he'd seen, in just the few pages he'd taken a look at though, convinced him he probably didn't want to know what was written. How come Toshiro had a book like this anyway?_

_“Matsumoto didn't finish her work.” Toshiro offered by way of explanation, already having moved off from the doorway and towards the 'living' areas._

_Ichigo, in his haste to catch up, let the cover of the book fall shut under its own weight the rest of the way. The impact kicked up a chocking cloud of dust right in his face. Coughing he staggered backwards to escape it only to step on a rock, which rolled out from under his feet, causing him to fall back against the large empty tank at the back of the room. Said tank teetered for a second before falling off its, now obviously, precarious perch, crashing onto Ichigo and the ground, and decorating the entire room with broken glass._

_After a short stunned pause he reached a hand up to touch at the back of his head, feeling only a bruise there and no blood. Cursing as he shook the glass off his shihakusho he found that he'd thankfully avoided getting sliced by the broken glass._

_“Amazing.” A cold deadpan voice stopped Ichigo's muttering. As the dust settled back down he could see Toshiro had come back to the doorway and was kicking the glass shards that had escaped into the hallway back into the room. “All that time alone here and now you break something?”_

* * *

  


The clouds above grew thicker as time passed and Ichigo was finding it harder and harder to walk the distance between the barrel and crater. His feet hurt, not from lack of stamina on his part, but from the simple cold.

When he had entered this realm it had felt chilly, but since then the temperature had been steadily dropping and he was walking on ice and snow to begin with. Shunpo wasn't allowed, walking on air wasn't allowed, heck Hyorinmaru had threatened to end the task and banish him from the realm if he so much as dared to think of any other ways of completing the task with reiatsu. It was blatantly obvious to Ichigo that the dragon seemed to enjoy his mounting frustration.

Ichigo didn't usually let anyone or anything push him around, but he was making a valiant effort to stay composed now. On the one part, there was something… distinct about Zanpakuto. Just as he naturally had never really stood up to Zangetsu, not counting achieving his bankai, he didn't feel like directly confronting the dragon. On the other part, Toshiro's future hung on the whims of this beast which seemed to change moods at random.

Still the dragon was aggravating with its mere presence.

With a curse Ichigo sat down beside the barrel and checked his feet. The sandals were soggy and the socks were getting moist as well. Wet clothing was no good in this cold, he knew, but neither was walking barefoot.

“If you sit around for too long I'll end this.” Hyorinmaru warned, blue tongue coming out long enough to curl upwards and lick at its ruby eyes.

“Sorry, didn't mean to deprive you of your entertainment.” Ichigo muttered. Deciding that his sandals could last a while longer he stood from the ground, patting at his rear to dislodge the clinging snow off his hakama. Just that small break had already started to numb his bottom, if he didn't know any better he would have said that the ice on the ground was getting colder.

A suspicious glance at the dragon had him second-guessing that thought. For all he knew such a thing could be possible here in this realm. “Bah!” he snatched another seed out of the barrel and walked the few yards on the far too familiar path to the crater. Worrying about what the dragon could and couldn't do wouldn't get this done any faster. This was obviously a test of endurance and patience; that was easy enough to figure out from the simple but immense nature of it.

Too simple. Which was where all his concern was stemming from.

It felt like he'd been walking for hours, though he couldn't really be for sure. When he'd gone to his own inner world time outside himself seemed to stop, who knew what was happening outside now? Not to mention that time seemed to distort when performing monotonous tasks such as this.

He didn't seem to have had any impact on the number of seeds in the barrel at all. Again he was suspicious of the dragon. It might literally be impossible to empty it; his thoughts drifting to old fairy tales and ever full pots. But then what would the point to this be? Hyorinmaru had said that this was the same test Toshiro did to gain his bankai but that didn't really tell him all that much.

Many more trips later and he was convinced that the ground really was getting colder. Each step grew progressively more difficult, and painful. When the bottom of his sandals began to freeze solid he took them off, there really was no longer any point to keeping them on in such a condition. Time, and seeds, passed as he kept going with just his socks, but those too eventually started to freeze.

With a heavy sigh he again sat down by the barrel and slowly removed the socks. The frozen souls crackled from the ice as he pulled them off. He considered the situation for a second, and the very cold ground, before putting the socks back on with the frozen soul on top and the still relatively dry half on the bottom.

Moving the seeds wasn't an exhausting task, not in a physical sense, but the silence and monotony were starting to grow truly oppressive as he got back up and continued. Hyorinmaru wasn't any help either, its gaze was as heavy as the quiet, the only sound the dragon made now being the rustling movement of snow as it occasionally rearranged its body.

He didn't notice it at first, too focused on the cold of his feet while at the same time not thinking much at all, but a sharp gust finally caught his attention. A wind had begun to blow across the plain. It was barely there, a light breeze that occasionally spiked enough to stir the sleeves on his shihakusho. It was almost silent but once he noticed it he couldn't help but find the change ominous. Shaking the odd feeling off he set back to his task with only a cursory glare at the dragon after the pause.

Before long though the pain in his feet had him sitting by the barrel again and tugging the socks off, the cloth giving way with another crackle of ice. He'd hoped that he could flip them again, that the initial ice would have melted by now, but his luck didn't hold for that. The socks were both frozen solid; not solid enough to be rigid, but enough so that wearing them or not made no difference.

Tossing them aside he focused on his feet instead. They'd turned white from the cold, and the souls were thoroughly numb, only the edges continuing to pin and prickle with pain. Nothing had turned blue yet but considering that he was nowhere near emptying the barrel that was probably just a matter of time.

“Already disheartened boy?” He almost jumped at the dragon’s voice, Hyorinmaru had been silent for so long.

“As if. This is nothing.” Right, he could deal with a little frostbite. He'd faced hell itself and come out alive and Toshiro had passed this challenge as well. He could do this easy, being more than stubborn enough to stay at the task until the barrel really was empty. At least now he could see that indeed it was emptying and not being infinitely replenished.

He just hoped that none of the frostbite would carry over into the waking world. As he got up the wind seemed to suddenly pick up pace and the temperature drop by several degrees.

“That's good. The fun's only just begun after all.” The dragon seemed to purr.

“What do you mean?” Ichigo asked wearily, as he picked a seed out of the barrel.

Hyorinmaru's low purr grew to a full rumble. “You'll see.”

He looked at the dragon for a little while longer before turning away to start his back and forth march again. Not knowing what to expect was one of the more difficult and troubling things in his experience, but he had more than enough patience to see this through.

As he continued to walk the wind slowly grew in strength, becoming an almost audible whisper across the frozen plains while the formerly white and wispy clouds grew heavy and dark above.

* * *

 

_The night was balmy, the cold of winter late in coming to Seireitei. Even now there was still green on many of the trees that should have lost all their leaves more than a month ago. A waning crescent moon hung in a cloudless sky, providing only a minimum of illumination for the backstreets he had to take through the tenth division's compound to reach his destination._

_No one could tell him now that he couldn't be stealthy. He'd managed to make it all the way to the back wall of the captain's quarters without setting off a single alarm. If Matsumoto had succeeded in her task Toshiro should be in his quarters right now, making the task of sneaking in doubly difficult. But it was all worth it, or would be once the element of surprise was complete._

_Checking up and down the backstreet and on the large parcel slung over his shoulder one last time he hopped to the top of the wall and crouched there looking through the garden cautiously. Edging forward as quietly as he could he was just about to jump down when-_

_“Kurosaki?”_

_-a voice startled him and caused him to lose his footing. That seemed to happen a lot around this area. Twisting mid-air as he fell into the garden he managed to land on his feet and almost make the whole accident look purposeful._

_“Toshiro?”_

_So much for the surprise. The captain stood in the darker shadows of one of the trees, the looming branches hiding him from being seen from above. Strangely enough he held a torn loaf of bread in his hands._

_“You really shouldn't stand there...” There was a half amused smirk on Toshiro's face which immediately set all of Ichigo's alarms off but he didn't have time to ponder at the perplexity of it because a noise from below drew his gaze down._

_All around him the ground seemed to be alive with scuttling movements. Bugs he realized quickly as he lifted a foot to notice he'd squished a few of the things during his landing. He was about to take a cautious step out of the mass when all the insects abruptly stopped moving. He froze with them, staring warily down at what he could now distinguish in their stillness were ants._

_Ants the size of mice and rats._

_His foot had just passed over a particularly large one that was waving its feelers and giant mandibles directly at him, or the remains of its comrade on the bottom of his feet._

_Then, again en-mass, the critters stood up on their hind legs and hissed at him. Hissed like puffing snakes, or Yoruichi-san on a wet day, and charged. With a yelp he began to dance around trying to get the bugs off. The small ones were one thing, but the larger ones had mandibles the size of his fingers and their bites hurt._

_Of course hopping about to escape the swarm led to him stepping on more of them which incensed the creatures all the more and seemed to make extra hundreds appear out of thin air._

_“Get to the deck, they won't come up there.” He heard Toshiro call from some place, he didn't bother to check, infact the captain had barely gotten halfway through the statement before a shunpo had carried Ichigo out of immediate danger. He'd just stepped in a random direction to escape the attack, and quickly used another shunpo to make it to the back deck of Toshiro's quarters._

_True to the captain's words, as soon as he touched down on the wood, the remaining ants that were clinging to him seemed to lose the will to fight, falling off him and scuttling frantically to get off the wood. He spent a minute patting at his hakama just to make sure they were all gone, the feeling of the prickling legs seeming to have burned itself into his skin._

_“You're an idiot, aren't you?” was the statement that announced Toshiro's arrival, loaf of bread suspiciously absent. The captain had a look of amazement on his face, similar to the one Rukia had had when she'd first discovered carbonated drinks._

_“How was I supposed to-. I was trying-. WHAT THE HELL WERE THOSE THINGS!?”_

_Toshiro's expression changed from bafflement to blatant amusement. “Guards?”_

_“They hissed at me! They stood up like little midgets and HISSED at me!” Ichigo felt like he'd just been assaulted by a phylogenic tree. Hollows could look beastly and attack people and that was still kind of okay because they were ‘monsters’, but insects did not stand up and-_

_“Yeah, they tend to do that.” Toshiro was blatantly snickering now, which completely passed over Ichigo's head as he was far too preoccupied at having his world order assaulted in such a way._

_“Ants!?” Could Toshiro not see how absolutely wrong this was?_

_Apparently not, because that one word had the captain literally laughing. That was enough to knock Ichigo out of being stunned by angry insects to being stunned at the unusualness of it all. “Did you think, you could just sneak into a captain's quarters, like that?” Toshiro asked between laughs._

_“Well...but..ants?” Ichigo whined, deflating as Toshiro calmed his laughter. Really, what could he do in the face of that? He just wished making the captain laugh so didn't usually involve a humiliating event such as this one._

_“You think those are frightening, you should see Kurotsuchi’s camel spiders. Even Madarame screams like a child when those things get out.” Ichigo just stared at his lover. Toshiro was laughing, Toshiro was laughing and telling mocking jokes..._

_“Are you drunk?” Ichigo asked, which wasn't impossible considering the date and Matsumoto's talents when she focused on her goals. The humor almost completely vanished, Toshiro's frown returning though a smirk still lingered at the corner of his lips._

_“No. You just never cease to surprise.” Ichigo raised his free hand to scratch the back of his head with embarrassment unsure of whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, though he'd heard pretty much the same thing from others. “What's that?” Toshiro asked right after, pointing at the package still slung over Ichigo's shoulder._

_“Oh yeah. It's your birthday present.” Ichigo took it off his shoulder and held it out for Toshiro. It was a large oval shape, wrapped in simple brown paper, and held in a small net for carrying. Toshiro took it and pulled the netting and paper away to reveal a fresh watermelon._

_“How did you get this? Its winter.” the captain questioned, looking at Ichigo with curiosity._

_“Over in the living world, modern greenhouses can grow some things year-round. I'm guessing it's not going to be as good as an in-season one... but Rangiku-san said you liked them and I couldn't think of anything else to get and...” Ichigo let his speech trail off._

_“Sit.” Toshiro commanded, placing the watermelon on the wooden floor and retreating inside the compound. To fetch utensils Ichigo guessed._

_With a heavy sigh Ichigo let himself drop onto the floor as well, sitting with his legs crossed and lightly tapping a fist against his forehead. Before long Toshiro returned with a large plate and knife, placed them on the ground, and began cutting the watermelon._

_“You know, I had this all planned out.” Ichigo stated as he watched Toshiro cut without really seeing any of it._

_“It's pretty dry.” Toshiro commented on the watermelon, holding a piece out to Ichigo and taking one for himself before asking. “How did you plan things to go?”_

_Ichigo accepted the slice, balancing the outside of it in his palm and letting it rock back and forth there. “Well, for one I was supposed to surprise you. Then you'd be happy to see me, I'd give you your present, maybe get at least a hug for all my efforts. Not even Rukia noticed me enter Seireitei, I'm getting good at sneaking.”_

_“Well I am happy, though that's more for the entertainment you provide. And I knew you were there so you're not THAT good yet.”_

_This earned Toshiro a glare from Ichigo. “You knew?”_

_Toshiro nodded and the smirk was back on his face. “That's why I went out to feed the ants.”_

_“Tha.. You little..” for a moment there was silence as Ichigo mulled this over. “That hurt, you know.”_

_“But well worth watching the little dance.” Toshiro commented with dry humor._

_“Che, where'd you get such nasty things anyway?” Ichigo questioned, noticing with interest that despite his comment on the watermelon's lack of adequacy Toshiro was already moving onto his second piece._

_“Bred them. Was a combined project between the second and twelfth divisions . Tenth was supposed to be the 'neutral' party that would test the experiment and report results without bias. They were supposed to be a more secure and covert form of getting sensitive messages through Seireitei than either hell butterflies or messengers. Well they weren't too good at communication, but they make excellent guards.”_

_“And I didn't notice them earlier because..?” Ichigo questioned, finally starting on his own piece of watermelon._

_“Their nests are almost entirely underground, and I keep 'em restricted to along the outer walls. I doubt you have ever stepped into them before. They can be quite annoying if not taken care off. Feed them too much and they won't come out even if a mob were to run over them, don't feed them enough and they'll escape the compound and get everywhere and into everything looking for food.”_

_“Sounds fun.” Ichigo commented, thinking back now to the large aquarium that had almost crushed him._

_“It is. My neighbors love me, and help me keep 'em fed. Not often you see communities pull together like that.” Toshiro's grin was quite wicked at this comment as he looked out into the dark shadows of the trees. His neighbors, of course, were the vice-captain's building, and the apartments for the seated officers. Really, this just went on to reinforce in Ichigo's mind the fact that, even though the tenth was one of the more 'sane' divisions in Seireitei, it still had its own brand of tomfoolery._

_“Right, cause everybody just loves walking into their kitchen to be hissed at by demon ants.” Ichigo shook his head. There was no point in asking why Toshiro would do such a thing, he already knew that more than likely the situation hadn't been planned but simply developed on its own. Everything in the tenth captain's quarters seemed to go at its own pace. As much control as Toshiro kept on the rest of his division, here in his home he allowed things to simply be._

_“But they make excellent pest control.” the captain pointed out. Half the watermelon was already gone, and Toshiro began to cut the remaining half into slices. By the time he was done with that Ichigo was only just finishing with his first piece and placing the crust back on the plate. “Kurosaki..”_

_“Hm?” Ichigo watched curiously as Toshiro put the knife down and then crawled forward until he was close enough to put his arms around the other. Ichigo was startle for a second before he returned the gesture, wrapping one of his own arms around Toshiro's lower waist. “Well, I do still deserve at least this.” he chuckled quietly and he could hear Toshiro snort lightly at his ear._

_“Just as planned, huh?” Toshiro questioned, brushing his lips lightly against Ichigo's neck as he pulled back. “And just a hug?” A raised eyebrow and the familiar smirk, at least for tonight, added weight to the innuendo of the last line._

_“Heh, well if I had said anything else, you'd have hit me or kicked me out.” Ichigo shrugged, pleased when Toshiro stayed beside him instead of returning to his earlier seat._

_“That's true.” the captain agreed, taking another slice of the watermelon. “Your teaching internship starts after your holiday's?” he asked, casually._

_“Ye-.. Where'd you hear that!”_

_“Those poor children.”_

_“Who did you bribe that out off!? Rukia? Renji?”_

* * *

  


The temperature dropped ever lower as Ichigo continued his circular march. By now his feet didn't hurt anymore. They were numb, but it wasn't a comforting numbness that allowed him to continue walking. It was its own distinct kind of pain, one that made every step a trial on his senses, but his feet weren't even the worst of it.

The cold in the air was no longer his only enemy; there was also a terrible dryness to it. All moisture was frozen and trapped in the ice beneath his feet. The exercise of walking kept him warm enough to keep the cold at bay for the most part, he wasn't shivering, but his skin had seen better days. Shihakusho generally weren't great for this weather, and it was really starting to show. On his hands, around his lips, along the back of his neck, he could feel painful blisters forming. The ones on his fingers were especially annoying as they made the simple act of picking up the seeds an arduous task.

Between the grinding pain of his feet, which oddly enough he felt more in his knees now than the feet themselves, and stabbing pain of the blisters the task Hyorinmaru had set before him was turning out to be anything but simple.

It felt like he'd been at it for a day at least, there was a noticeable difference on the number of seeds in the barrel, but the only change in the light of this inner world was minimal. The wind around him had grown in intensity, but the clouds above moved slower and slower, growing too large for even the increased airspeed to move them along. Like Hyorinmaru's gaze, the shadows of the clouds grew to be a heaviness on his shoulder, their darkness passing over the white fields which were more and more starting to take on a gray palor.

He leaned on the barrel with his arms, breathing heavily even though this wasn't anywhere near as physically taxing as a full out battle against many of the enemies he'd faced before.

No, that wasn't quite right. Those battles had been of a whole other area of physical strength. The kind that came and went in bursts and starts. The kind that had earned him his infamy in all the worlds. This constant pressure, and pull, on his strength was a whole other kind of exercise. One he was nowhere near as well practiced at.

Slowly he lifted one foot off the ground, letting it rest in the air and away from the vicious ice and snow below, before placing it back down and lifting the other. It didn't help, if anything the small break made putting them back down on the frozen ground that much more painful.

“Heh. Boy, how long can you keep this up?” Hyorinmaru growled, the first it had spoken in a very long time. Ichigo tensed himself against the noise, every time the dragon spoke his situation seemed to get worse.

“Until the end.” Ichigo snarled at the beast, not bothering at all to keep his hate, and right now it was indeed a kind of hatred, for the dragon out of his voice or gaze. Hyorinmaru opened its mouth, lips pulling back and up in a brutal mockery of a human grin.

“Let's see it then.” As if on the dragon’s command, which it probably was, the wind picked up with a snap and the temperature took another obvious dive. With a growl, Ichigo reached into the barrel and grabbed a seed, ignoring the pain from the blisters on his hands, and began to walk again. Back and fourth, however many times it would take, he wasn't going to give that overgrown snake the satisfaction of seeing him fail.

He didn't fail, couldn't when the future of one of his precious people, the most precious, was resting on him.

He pushed onwards as the clouds above began to roil, coalescing together and slowly closing off any gaps and glimpses of the blue sky above. It created a strange lens effect across the icy landscape, with shafts of light cutting down through the clouds as if the places that they touched were blessed in some way. It would have been beautiful, in a strangely distant and removed kind of way, if Ichigo hadn't been in pain and so preoccupied in taking the next seed. No such light was coming down to bless him of course, above the area where he walked the clouds had come together to lock the sky away completely.

The blisters he had been growing burst at some point in his constant marching, a sour metallic taste, far worse than blood, settling in his mouth from the puss leaking out of those on his lips and inside, yes inside, his nose. That was a new experience. He was used to blisters on his palms and fists, from fighting and wielding Zangetsu, but now he had leaking blisters in places he'd never even imagined such things could grow.

It was vile but he didn't so much as blink at this change. He knew the dragon was looking for it, any small flinch, falter, or change in his expression. He despised Hyorinmaru for it, and refused to give in to its sick pleasures.

But it was growing harder and harder not to show the effects of the cold. He could ignore the pain in his legs, it was a simple matter of acknowledging it and letting it pass on, and entirely block out most of the sensations from his blisters. But as the temperature continued to fall there was nothing he could do to stop his body from shivering.

He tried of course, tightened all his muscles till it became difficult to walk, not that it wasn't already with lead for feet, but nothing could stop the occasional shudder. Worse yet the dragon seemed to enjoy his futile struggle more than the shivering itself, giving a snort when Ichigo's control slipped.

Finally Ichigo gave up on that, no point in being stubborn if it was making the show better for the damned snake. Instead he focused ahead and on stopping the shivering in his pained hands long enough to grasp the seeds. He didn't look down anymore to watch his steps, he didn't want to see what his feet looked like. He'd tried putting the socks back on so that he wouldn't see, but by now they had truly become solid.

Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

back and forth.

And back, leaning heavily on the barrel that just wasn't emptying fast enough. How long had he been at this again? He'd started with a clear grasp on time. He hadn't known how much exactly passed but he'd been aware of the passing. He'd lost that ability at some point and now tried to remember exactly when that was as he took a light break.

Except that was impossible, right? How could you find time if you'd lost your sense of it. He gazed about the frozen plains. All the gaps in the clouds had closed. What had once been a world of white was now a dismal metallic color, made of steel and mercury instead of ice and snow. Looking back down into the barrel he guessed it to be still half full at the least.

The clouds and the barrel didn't help establishing time though, not when he hadn't really been paying attention to them up until now. With a heavy groan he slid down to sit by the barrel, leaning heavily against it and pulling his frozen feet up to hold against himself and try to rub some life back into them.

Toshiro had passed this task, and it had looked so piss easy at the beginning. With a snap the statement finally settled in his mind. Toshiro had gone through this, who knew how long ago, alone and freezing just as he was freezing now. Sure the captain had a tolerance for the cold but even that had its limits.

And Hyorinmaru, the originator of it all.

He turned to the dragon with an angry snarl. “What are you?” he hissed, feeling the rage boil up, for a short moment pushing all the pain and cold aside. “Aren't Zanpakuto supposed to save souls. Purify them, send them to soul society, protect their wielder and those precious to him!?”

The dragons face was statuesque. A solid expression as the crimson eyes bore down on him with malice and a depth far beyond his reach. “Yes.” The beast finally hissed out, a long sigh as it slowly used its wings to push its upper body off the ground lightly.

“Yes, to protect. But I have nothing to protect. Human souls don't interest me, soul society betrayed me, and my wielders are gone and broken.” with each word the dragon pushed itself up, higher finally throwing its head back in a sharp keen. “THERE IS NOTHING FOR ME TO PROTECT!”

“But Toshiro-” Ichigo's call was cut off as the head snapped forward, the teeth of the dragon's maw suddenly snapping together mere inches away from him. He would have fallen back at the sudden movement if he hadn't been on the ground already.

“NOTHING! Pathetic child that could not protect the other half of our soul.” Hyorinmaru roared in his face, lips pulled back completely, showing the blue gums that the dragons teeth, each one at least as long as its blade in zanpakuto form, were embedded in. The wind of its roar blew ice crystals in Ichigo’s face and frosted his hair.

As quickly as the temper had come it faded away, the lips fell back down and hid the deadly teeth and the head retreated as Hyorinmaru practically deflated and spread itself along the ground.

Ichigo stared at the beast, realizing that in his own anger he’d hit right at a sore spot and not quite sure what to do with this now. “You're talking about… Kusaka?” He remembered, crossing blades with the renegade shinigami, the resonance between Zangetsu and Hyorinmaru that had revealed that dark and hidden piece of Toshiro's past to him.

“Worse than trash that one. Lower than pathetic. One who would turn on his other half and turn me against myself. One who wouldn't even have the decency to fade away when his time came. Abhorrent slime that dared to abuse my power and wield me like a mere tool.” Hyorinmaru's stoic face again took on the cruel mockery of a human grin. “I'm glad you killed him, wiped him from this existence.”

Ichigo leaned back against the barrel, suddenly exhausted. His anger was still there, but he couldn't summon the hatred he'd held before when suddenly the dragon before him was now obviously broken and twisted in ways far worse than the physical blade. It wasn't pity precisely, nor sympathy, but a deeper feeling of empathy. The same empathy that had driven him to spare the lives of so many other enemies of his, such as Grimmjow.

He closed eyes and let his head fall back. Toshiro had passed this test, with all the cold and pain of it, with the wrath and disdain of his own Zanpakuto at his back. Toshiro, who was just as obsessed with protecting those who were precious to him as Ichigo himself was. And now he could understand why. Now, years after the fact, the captain still beat himself for failing to protect Hinamori, failing to prevent the kidnapping of Orihime, failing to stop the rising of Hell's Gates.

How could anyone recover from such a thing when a personification of their own soul did nothing but despise them for each successive fault and never let them forget.

* * *

  


_The sky was on fire. Nothing during the battles against hollows, arrancar, and Aizen could have prepared him from the literal sight of the very air turning to flame. The infernos, floating in the air like oil slicked clouds bathed all the sky a deep bloody red. One shunpo, two, three, his senses stretching to the breaking point to locate the flares of reiatsu that marked those he had to protect._

_It would have been easy now, if he wasn't in such a rush and so far from town. Literal child's play now that… he was truly dead with no body or home to return too._

_Four shunpo, five, six, seven, eight, too many, ten, eleven._

_And there, finally, he could see Karakura in the distance. Feel the flicker of his friend's lives, human and shinigami. Fifteen shunpo and he was by Toshiro, the captain kneeling and leaning heavily on Hyorinmaru as he gazed at the last smoldering remains of what must have been hundreds of demons._

_Just behind Toshiro the jewel that had cast its protective light over Karakura lay scattered, the glow it had held faded leaving the shards looking more like regular dead rocks than the brilliant facets it had once been part off._

_His fist tightened, the burn of the Hogyoku he held thrumming up his arm as he kneeled by his lover. “Toshiro?” He was personally going to rip the non-existent hearts out of every demon in hell if anything had happened to his precious ones. But Toshiro, despite bearing some heavy injuries seemed to simply be exhausted. The captain's eyes were held tightly shut, his breath coming in ragged gasps, as he leaned his forehead against his hands and zanpakuto._

_“Toshiro?” Ichigo called again reaching out his free hand to touch the other, causing Toshiro to jolt and stare at him with distant eyes before seeming to come back to reality. Using his zanpakuto as a lever, Toshiro pulled himself up to his feet, seemingly still in a daze._

_Ichigo wondered what demon Toshiro had been forced to face. The demons were creatures horrible enough to make Hollows look like petting zoo animals, summoning fears, nightmares, and forms from deep within their enemy's minds. Though some hollow had equivalent powers they at least had been human once. Nothing less than a grand demon could have done this kind of damage, to both the surroundings and Toshiro, he thought as the captain turned blank eyes at the jewel he had been charged to protect. “I've failed.” he stated matter-of-factly. Ichigo didn't like the resignation in that voice, the absolute weariness of it._

_“Oi, earth to Toshiro here. Hellooo.” Ichigo waved a hand in front of Toshiro's face. The captain blinked at Ichigo and finally seemed to check back into reality._

_“Were you able to find the Hogyoku.” Toshiro frowned, defaulting back to his 'cold-captain' demeanor._

_“Yeah. Kenpachi, Unohana, and Soi Fon are on their way here too an-”_

_The ground beneath them shook, caused them both to momentarily lose their footing before jumping to the air. Above the burning clouds began to seep oily fire like oozing waterfalls. Slowly, the ooze began to pile up while below the earthquake sirens of Karakura added their own touch to the chaos. Ichigo watched with a helpless frown as people below ran out of buildings, as best they could on the shaking ground, to escape from the debris inside. They, of course, could not see the flaming clouds but Ichigo knew too well that this was no ordinary earthquake. Again the weight of their lives fell on his shoulders like concrete._

_The oozing flames continued to seep out of the sky into the mountains, though the distance from Karakura was hardly a blessing now. They built up, first into a pile of sludged flames, and then taking on a solid form in the air._

_Finally, as it cooled, the details on its surface became clear. First the giant form of the familiar hell's gate that he'd seen when banishing evil souls and, as these gates opened, a circular door beyond it. A mockery of the Senkaimon. The circular gate was made entirely of flamed bones, popping and pussing blisters of flesh, and a black cloud of stench that immediately pervaded across the town. People that had run into the street, and probably within buildings though he couldn't see them, suddenly fell to the ground, choked by the miasma that was seeping out of the slowly opening gates._

_Hell's Gate had appeared on earth._

_And just as the tremors on the ground ceased the familiar cries of hollows and subsonic, gut wrenching, wails of demons filled the air._

_Ichigo found himself torn. Hell's Gate had appeared on top of the mountains of all things. Far away from the town, the town where all his friends would be fighting for their lives within moments._

_“What are you waiting for!?” Toshiro's cry snapped him out of his stupor just as hundreds of hollows burst into the living world above them. But the familiar enemy did not jump at them, instead each of the hollow took off, greedily hunting after the nearest demon, not that there was any shortage of prey. “Get the Hogyoku to that door and seal it!” There was still a heaviness to his expression but the frown and bossy tone of voice were all too familiar of the tenth captain of the Gotei Thirteen._

_“We'll take care of things here, but you're the only one that can make it to that door in time to stop it from opening.” It seemed to cost Toshiro more than pride to say those words, and Ichigo could already sense Rukia and Ishida engaging in battle._

_“Take care of them.” Ichigo asked, filing away the flinch the words prompted out of his lover for later consideration before taking off. He wanted to protect his friends in person, but the best he could do now is to stop the worst of this tragedy from occurring. Behind him he felt the heavy pulse of reiatsu that signaled Toshiro's bankai release, and he knew that before long Zaraki, Unohana, Soi Fon, and the Vaizard would be stepping into Karakura with an army of Menos, Adjuchas, and Vastro Lorde to combat the demons that were already falling out of the flaming clouds like so much rain._

_He had to make it for all their sakes. Again._

* * *

  


“Go down the path, go down the path.

Going is easy, coming back is scary.

Even though it's scary, go down the path, go down the path.”

Ichigo woke with a gasp, trying to force his frozen body upright only to find he could barely move at all. Above him Hyorinmaru ceased with its children's lullaby and looked at him curiously.

“I was about to throw you from this world.” The dragon admonished in what was the closest thing to a caring tone of voice Ichigo had heard it use yet. Forcing frozen limbs to cooperate he slowly rolled over onto his stomach, and then pushed up into a crouch. Using the barrel for support he finally pulled himself upright and onto his feet.

“And I thought we were done.” In the time it took Ichigo to gather his legs Hyorinmaru had lost its tender tone and was growling at him angrily. “Are you going to continue this boy?”

Ichigo didn't respond. Couldn't. Only choked and stuttered sounds could escape from his body that was shivering so wildly he was near convulsing. He almost bit his tongue several times as he tried to get the words out. The thick clouds above roiled with thunder and the wind had turned downright vicious.

“Stupid boy. Give up already. It is impossible for one person to complete the task of another. No one could have completed Zangetsu's test for you or like you, and you cannot complete this test for the little master.” Hyorinmaru thrashed its head along the ground almost tipping the barrel and Ichigo over in the movement. “Get out of my realm, intruder!”

“D-deal.” he finally managed to stutter out, glaring at the dragon. “M-m-made a d-deal.” He took a deep breath forcing all he had into steadying himself for his next words. “I'll finish this.” Ichigo looked at Hyorinmaru without a single doubt in his gaze. The same cold look he'd given to many of his greatest foes before defeating them.

The dragon raised itself up with an angry hiss, then turned away from him with a dismissive sniff. “Very well. May you die trying.” The beast curled itself about the dome of ice which Ichigo had all but forgotten about, and placed its head atop it, crimson eyes glaring.

“Things will get much worse from here.” It promised, and Ichigo, no longer possessing the control to make a non stuttering reply just reached back down into the barrel. Internally he berated himself for having lost consciousness like that. Outwardly he was finding it difficult now to even grasp the seeds thanks to his shivering. The ground and air had practically sucked all the warmth out of him and the noise of his own chattering teeth seemed to echo oddly in his head making even thinking difficult.

But it didn't stop him from starting his march again. “Go down the path, go down the path.” the lullaby echoed eerily in the spaces of his mind that the chattering didn't completely fill.

The wind continued to pick up in pace, a howling force dead and determined to make up for all the silence that had plagued him at the beginning of this task. He wanted that silence back, his inner ears thrummed with pain at each heart beat and he couldn't feel the shell of his ears at all anymore. In fact, the same could be said for all of his extremities. The pain in his knees had faded into nothing while now his hip joints ached with every movement.

He pushed it all aside, forced his body to move again and again. He had no problems looking down at his blue feet now. He didn't bother worrying about time anymore, it was meaningless in this situation where the next move was far more important.

Slowly his shivering subsided, the hands that reached down into barrel for seeds, thoroughly blue in color. He knew this was a bad sign, that his body was shutting down, but just as quickly as the thought came it was dismissed. Bad or not, he had to finish this.

His shihakusho crackled with every step, the fabric freezing on him. He considered taking it off but again the thoughts were dismissed. It would not make any difference, at least in this state the cloth didn't flap about in the snapping winds. As his skin turned blue, the clouds above took on a dark red hue, an odd hidden sunset in this realm that only translated into a bloodening of the darkness beneath the cloud cover.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

He didn't understand at first why he became aware of the darkness. By now he didn't really need light to find his path, it was worn right into the ice and snow. Ichigo made it to the barrel and reached down for another seed. It was getting to being empty, forcing him to lean bodily into it to retrieve the seeds, the edge cutting into his middle.

“And when he walks around with just his kimono on, he looks like he's wearing a skirt. But don't tell him I said that.”

As he reached down he felt a crack run up his arm, the sound momentarily stopping his rambling. When had he started to do that anyway? He blinked at his outstretched limb owlishly where a long dark line had marred the blue length of it. It didn't look like a cut but precisely the kind of crack you'd find in plastic or concrete if you stretched it too far. It had been this noise which had knocked him out of his walking stupor? He watched in morbid fascination as blood began to ooze sluggishly out of the laceration. For some strange reason it seemed funny that even his blood was being slow in this cold, and after that thought had time to settle fear followed it soon after.

For a while he stood quite literally frozen, leaning into the barrel and watching his own blood slowly goop out of an injury caused by nothing less than his skin giving way like a thin ice sheet. Then with shaking hands he picked up another seed, and started back to the crater.

He had no idea why. Part of him wanted to desperately throw in the towel right now, especially as every step was accompanied by the cracking of more skin giving away. But he couldn't. He couldn't really think of why anymore either. Toshiro lingered at the back of his mind, and the crimson eyes of the dragon were still watching, and his own pride was trying to puff itself up to fill the void that his body’s warmth had left behind.

But none of it really registered. He kept going because he had nothing else to do. There simply was no other path for him to take despite the fear. Eventually even his skin would stop cracking as long as he stopped caring. And it did, after a while all the points of stress on his skin had been snapped open, only the occasional crackle of frozen blood intruding on his refrained stupor.

Finally, one glorious instant, he reached into the barrel and heard his fingers scrape along the bottom. There were still seeds across the outer rim, but he could see the wooden underside and a surge of familiar awareness and wakefulness rushed through him. He WAS going to finish this.

Grabbing a seed he turned and walked, a little brisker and about the closest thing to a happy skip he could make at that point. He WAS going to finish. The wind kicked up in its assault, becoming a full force gale that now threatened to blow him to the ground with every passing second. It didn't matter, he was going to finish this.

Back and forth.

He was going to finish.

Back and forth.

He was going to finish.

Back and forth.

He was going to finish.

Back and forth.

He was going to finish.

Ichigo leaned into the barrel, running his fingers along the inside. As time had passed the world around him turned pitch black and the roaring winds silenced almost all other sounds. Was he still talking? The only light now was Hyorinmaru, a soft white glow emanating from the dragon, reminiscent of the reflective light of the moon.

The wind's snow and ice could not block the glow, and its raging roars could not drown out the dragons song.

“Cherry blossoms gracefully bloom o'er the fields that lie,

High up is the castle wall, where have warriors gone?

Where is the moonlight that brightly shone up high,

Shone upon the warriors who drained the glasses dry?”

Finally his searching fingers found a seed and he raised himself from the barrel. Turning painfully slowly he shuffled his feet along the ground, his left foot hitting the bottom of the barrel. A snap followed the light thunk, both sounds drowned out by the wind. Ichigo didn't notice any of it at all, couldn't feel the hit or the toes that had been broken right off his foot, and kept trudging back towards the crater.

“White frost o'er the autumn camps freezing the whole night,

Flocks of wild geese cry and pass just below the moon.

Where is the moonlight that might have shone so bright,

Shone upon the warriors' swords gleaming through the night?”

He was leaning into the barrel again, looking for those elusive seeds. A snap ran through his entire body, the shift of it impossible to miss even in his state. He looked down at his midriff, where the barrel's edge had cut straight through his frozen abdomen.

...

Where his intestines slowly spilled out of him only to be frozen almost as soon as they were touched by the outside air.

His fingers closed around a seed but he couldn't bring himself to move. He felt no shock at the sight, his mind instead turning to ponder how he could get his guts back in. He couldn't exactly leave without them, could he?

Gentle as a feather a white snout pushed itself between him and the barrel, forcing him upright and off the traitorous edge, turning him about, and giving the lightest of shoves in the direction of the crater.

“Oh, the moon is rising high in the depths of night,

Silent is the ruined site lying on the ground,

Ivies creep o'er the gate in the cold moonlight,

Rustling are the pine trees through the windy night.”

Forth and back he came, stepping over the gory trail he had left in his last passage and leaning back into the barrel.

He was going to finish this.

He stayed like that for a long time, his hands groping blindly for a seed as his back completely split open from the pressure of being bent so far. Finally, again, he found a seed and with great difficulty turned around.

He was going to finish this.

Step after dragging step towards the familiar edge, it couldn't be that many more trips now. He was going to finish this.

A tremendous gust of wind struck him from behind, causing him to stagger and fall. Two vicious snaps, barely noticed, ran through him as he hit the ground and lay there for a while. After the stun from the fall faded he tried to push himself back up to his feet, but for some strange reason couldn't figure out how too.

It took him a while of struggling to figure out why, that the right no longer had a foot to stand on, the left no longer a lower leg.

No matter, the crater's edge was right there. He stretched his hand out to it but stalled. He knew it was right there, had walked the path plenty enough times, but he couldn't see, and couldn't tell when lying like this. He couldn't drop the seed anywhere else. It didn't matter why, he just couldn't.

Oh... it really didn't matter anymore.

“To rise and fall is people's fate, the moon shines so bright,

Looking down upon the world lying far below,

How sublime the moonlight o'er the ruined site,

How I love the moon that shines in the depths of night!”

He let his head fall, let the seed slip from his fingers. He couldn't go back, couldn't get the next seed and finish without feet to walk on. So it really didn't matter at all anymore.

He'd failed.

* * *

  


“Ichigo!” He startled awake with a shuddering breath. The lights above him too bright, Rukia's worried calls too loud, and everything fell into his head far too fast. He could feel the blood leave his face in a rush, and turned over only seconds before his last meal forced its way out of his rebelling stomach.

Hooray, he still had a stomach.

Small hands, carefully but firmly took a hold of his shoulders, helping him up once he was done heaving. They belonged to Kotetsu, and as he took a look around Ichigo could see Rukia hovering worriedly just behind the vice-captain. Kotetus pushed a lightly glowing hand against his forehead as Ichigo continued glance about the surroundings, the movements just short of frantic.

“It's alright, Kurosaki-san.” She reassured, whatever odd kido she was using slowly drowning out the frantic confusion in his mind and forcing him to calm.

All around him the seal that had been used to facilitate his entry into Toshiro's inner world was slowly flickering out of existence. The captain lay on a futon just a short distance away, and between them both sat Hyorinmaru. He looked at it with a mixture of relief and distaste, the blade was whole now which was strange. It should still be broken, exactly as it had been...

He'd failed after all, right?

It occurred to him that asking would probably be the quickest way to an answer. “Did it work?” He directed the question to Kotetsu, who’s hand had now moved to his chest to check on his vitals.

“The blade restored itself a few minutes ago.” she explained seemingly satisfied at his general health if the relieved sigh was anything to judge by.

“Ichigo. Here.” Rukia had stepped out of his sight for a moment but now her hand on his shoulder drew his attention to her and to a glass of water she held out to him.

“Thanks.” he said, giving her deeply grateful look as he took the water and tried to wash the taste of his stomach out of his mouth.

“Well, this wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it'd be.” Kotetsu smiled awkwardly and Ichigo almost choked on his drink. “I'll call Unohana-taicho now to check on Hitsugaya-taicho.” She explained quietly, standing up and bowing lightly to them before rushing out of the room.

“Not as bad...” Ichigo coughed, trying to get his breath back, while Rukia 'helpfully' hit his back, none too gently. “How long was I out?” he asked her, raising an arm to block her next hit.

“About six hours, and you looked horrible for the last two. Did you know that you can turn blue and green like a frog?” She said, concern played clearly on her face as well as the familiar anger at him doing something amazingly stupid, again.

“No. Thanks for letting me know.” He snarked, trying to push away the memories of Hyorinmaru's test while pushing himself up off the floor.

“Unohana-tachio was here just a short while ago so it shouldn't take long for her to be back.” Rukia explained as she tried to help him up. Ichigo nodded at that but really, all that meant was that he'd have less time to go over and stomp on Hyorinmaru or check on Toshiro himself.

But just as he was getting back up a familiar lightheadedness made the room spin. The feeling was familiar only because he'd experienced the side effects of exhaustion so many times before. Of course, those times he tended to also be suffering from severe physical injuries, and didn't pass out with Rukia catching him at the last instant. He could hear her calling for him, and slapping his face with bruising force, but pathetically could not find the strength to reassure her or escape the cloying darkness the claimed his thoughts.

* * *

  


Hitsugaya opened the back door of the room, letting the moonlight of the cool spring night seep into the infirmary. As a captain he was naturally given one of the better rooms which opened on the extensive and well tended gardens of the fourth division. He'd only woken a few minutes ago and didn't really know what to do with himself now. Hyorinmaru's last cry still echoed in his mind.

No one, not even his own Zanpakuto, was allowed to hurt those precious to Hitsugaya without consequence. He'd been there all along, trapped within that dome of ice which was clear enough to let him have a view of the spectacle that the dragon had made of Ichigo's degeneration, but thick and solid enough to hold in all his cries and attempts at escape.

He stayed at the door letting his mind clear out while gazing over the garden decorated by the fullmoon light. In the distance he could hear the gurgle of the small stream that ran through it, but the room they were in now didn't open directly onto it. Instead his view was decorated with mounds of well tended Bellflowers.

After a few minutes he turned around and walked back into the room. Hyorinmaru lay unsheathed atop his bed, a deep scratch running down the length of the blade along its middle. Hitsugaya wondered if the dragon had allowed him to watch the entire trial with the express goal of goading him into attacking his Zanpakuto. He wouldn't put it passed his dragon, Hyorinmaru had a very… unique way of working around things.

On the opposite wall from his own bed was another, covers pulled up on the figure still sleeping on his side there. Hitsugaya sat at the edge of it, then leaned back against him with a sigh, as his gaze focused on the Ichigo's sleeping face. It was almost enough to make him go back to his inner realm and fight the dragon again; the memory of the hellish trial that had torn his lovers body to pieces.

“Idiot.” He muttered finally with a heavy sigh, letting himself lie down on the bed beside Ichigo, with his head resting on the other's shoulder. Hitsugaya wouldn't have minded losing his power, not when the alternative had been so painful to watch. He still remembered the feeling of his own bankai training far too well to know that the damage extended well beyond the physical aspect.

At least Ichigo had had the benefit of facing it in a realm where physical damage didn't carry over at all. Toshiro's trial had been with the fully materialized and very real Hyorinmaru.

Hitsugaya wondered just how heavily this would all affect Ichigo's psyche, or whether the man would simply bounce back from it as he had done from all other things.

He let out a snort, either way, he'd have a few bones to pick with Ichigo when the idiot woke up. He was not, as the fool had blathered on to Hyorinmaru, manically bipolar, did not have a height complex, and was most certainly not going to let him off the hook for describing and comparing him to Chappy the bunny of all things.

The various compliments that had speckled Ichigo's ramblings were sorted, filed, and made non-applicable to the severity of the future punishment.

Hitsugaya reached up a hand to brush his fingers lightly over Ichigo's face a barely audible whisper of a “Thank you.” leaving his lips, before he hid his face against the broad chest and breathed deeply. Ichigo was never too close.


End file.
